There are some blog posts that will never be adequate to capture certain experiences.
This is one of those posts.
Dia Beacon is a very peculiar and specific art collection in upstate New York (Beacon, NY, specifically)– it was recommended HEARTILY to me by multiple friends, which is the only reason I knew it existed.
I went in with few expectations, and on entry, bought a little adorable donut as a snack, tossed back a LaCroix to fortify myself, and headed into the museum.
The reason I will never be able to properly share the works of Dia Beacon with you via photo: the massive SCALE is the point. Entering into a huge, multi-warehouse-large industrial space, the eyes are drawn to giant works that generally dwarf the humans inside.
Mostly made up of minimalist, but huge-scale works, this museum had something to stun the eye and disorient the body around every corner. A random assortment of artists made up the collection, so the styles and mediums of each work were very different.
In this way, it was impossible to ‘get one’s footing’ within the museum– each sculpture being so unique, it kept the viewer a little off-kilter. Some of my favorite works were disorienting by nature.
Now, I’m no art critic– so I don’t have sophisticate language to describe any of this. But as you can see in the photographs here, the extremely different plays on texture by each artist were amazing to observe. Moving between one room or area and the next, harsh metallic sidings would give way to natural materials, and then walking a little further would bring a transition into neon.
Each of the works used S C A L E to awe the viewer and cramp the mind. These extremely minimal works below were essentially piles on the floor, but piles that amazed the eye with soft-and-hard textures. The way the light played off the mirrored surface and the glass made the piles seem almost alive.
A highlight of the museum for me was seeing a piece by Michael Heizer. Heizer, the famously-reclusive, large-scale sculpture artist, had recently completed “City,” a massive-scale artwork out in the middle of the desert in an unknown location. With access being carefully restricted, I applied to see “City” two years in a row, and was denied each time.
That was disappointing, but seeing this massive work of his at Dia Beacon was a balm for that.
This work was just huge, and used geometric negative space cut into the floor to create a sense of emptiness. The stark lines were so minimally beautiful, but the gaping holes created a hollow feeling in me as I regarded them– giving new meaning to the phrase ‘staring into the void.’
It was a discomfiting sculpture to spend time with, but at the same time, I found its lack of stimuli somewhat soothing, too. The polished surface (poured concrete, I assume?) absorbed my footfalls, but later on, someone’s sneakers squeaked quite loudly as they came by– breaking the spell a bit.
And it was a spell. The work left me feeling quite stunned and spellbound.
It turns out that Dia Beacon was backing Heizer’s masterwork “City” for many years– and given it took Heizer FIFTY YEARS to finish the massive project, that speaks to their commitment to him. This smaller work, called “North, South, East, West” was clearly a stepping stone to the kind of work — his life’s work– that exists in the newly-done “City.”
While I might never win the lottery to get to gaze upon “City,” I was transfixed by this smaller work, and felt lucky to have seen it.
(See The New York Times’ gorgeous piece on “City”– which got me interested in Heizer– here):
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/19/arts/design/michael-heizer-city.html
Walking out of Dia Beacon felt like swimming up to a surface– like emerging back into a world that didn’t resemble the world I just left. The experience of this museum, which lasted just a few hours, stayed with me for some time. I highly recommend that you take the detour required to visit it.
Posted by Sun
